Joy Rome

At first, it is the colors that draw us in, but like all good stories, it takes time to get engaged, and so it is with Joy’s paintings. “Allow yourself to become the color, drink it in, move into it,” explains Joy. “Experience it up close and at a distance. Let the color upon color, shape upon shape reveal what lies beneath.” The layers upon layers of color and texture take time to discover. She tries to describe what she sees and feels. Her quest is to capture the complexity and richness of the world we live in.

Born in New York, Joy has lived most of her adult life on the West Coast where the vast spaces bring to mind the expectancy of possibility. As a young child she discovered that “art could take your breath away.” That breathlessness has never left. As an intuitive painter, time and experience, trial and error are the rock, the foundation, of Joy’s background. Other influences include her 3-year apprenticeship with a Master Weaver, years of study on the art of pigment mixing at the Mendocino Art Center, painting intensives in Carmel, California, and a personal commitment to always be stretching herself as an artist, which combine to make her work always evolving.

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